Spring! Lente! Primavera!

The warm weather of the last days has finally made the flower buds on the trees to break open and engulf the city in a sweet perfume. Since there are cherry trees everywhere in Changchun, it seems the whole city is in full bloom.
Japan is famous for it's cherry blossoms, but I have to say: in all the eight years that I lived in Japan, I don't think I have ever seen so many cherry trees in one city!

Until now, Changchun was a grey and dirty city to me, but at this very moment it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to. It's strange what flowers can do to me. The open bags of garbage lying on the side of the road, the dirty construction sites, even the dust in the air doesn't bother me when I smell the sweet perfume of cherry blossoms. This is, without a doubt, Changchun at it's best!
With all these flowers outside, it would be a waste to stay inside, so I've been going out with Auro at least once a day. Today we walked to the university campus and wherever the branches of the trees were in reach for Auro, we stopped and had a closer 'look'.

One, two, three!

While his father is in Japan writing papers and fixing boats, Auro is busy mastering his 'sitting by himself' skills. He is not quite there yet, but he practices every day. And believe it or not: he doesn't mind tipping over when he looses his balance. He actually seems to like that part the best!

Teeth time

For two days now, Auro has been sucking on his bottom lip and making a lot of smacking sounds. I wonder if he has started teething? I've tried to feel with my fingers in his mouth, but I don't feel anything out of the ordinary... When I offered him a teething rusk however, he took it very eagerly... could that be a sign? Is this it? Or should I prepare myself for lots of crying and sleepless nights?

Little man

Remo left for Japan yesterday and now Auro is the man of the house. He takes this job very seriously and supervises everything I do. When I'm sitting on the sofa, he is sitting in his 'walking chair' pulling at the cables of my computer. When I'm in the kitchen, he is right behind me opening and closing the cupboards. And when I'm in the dining room, he wheels himself under the table so he can pull at the tablecloth. Isn't he the cutest little man in the world?

Tummy time

Three days ago Auro turned 7 months, but he still doesn't show any interest in rolling over from his back to his tummy or the other way around. Sometimes he rolls over from his tummy to his back, but because that seems to surprise him every time, I believe it's more thanks to his imbalance than a desire to return to his back. Even though he loves exploring the apartment, the idea of crawling around by himself does not seem very appealing to him either.
But mama doesn't give up so easily! Two or three times per day I try to stimulate him by putting him on his stomach. It probably will never be his favourite position, but he doesn't cry anymore from the moment he is on his tummy. He'll be ready to crawl when he is ready to crawl! You'll see!

Jilin

This morning we came back from a two days' visit to Jilin. The city of Jilin lies about 120km to the east of Changchun (one and a half hour by bus) and even though it is the capital city of Jilin province, it is considerably smaller than Changchun (1,7 million inhabitants in Jilin versus 2,3 million in Changchun). We also found Jilin to be prettier than Changchun...

On the first day we visited the 'meteorite shower museum', mainly because it was really cold outside (around 0 degrees) and secondly because I had never seen a meteorite before. The museum claims to have the biggest meteorite on display in the world: 1,7 ton! I don't know what I was expecting, but it looked just like an ordinary rock. They also had a smaller meteorite for visitors to touch (10RMB!), so we took Auro out of his stroller and let him touch to his heart's delight. He looked like the first man on the moon!!

On our second day, we walked from our hotel to the other side of the river and visited a Confucian temple. After paying the entrance fee, a lady accompanied us and opened up the buildings as we walked along. She, as most of the people we met in Jilin, was totally crazy about Auro and kept touching and kissing him. Even when she took him out of the stroller, Auro was fine...at least for a while ;-)

In the afternoon we took a taxi to Beishan Park, a hilly park on the outskirts of the city. The main attraction of the park (at least for us) is a beautiful Buddhist temple, but because this temple is situated on the top of one of the hills and we had to climb a lot of stairs, I had to take Auro out of the stroller and carry him. On the way up we left the heavy stroller behind with a lady who was selling good luck charms. On the way back, we bought something from her in return, upon which she presented Auro with a small wooden charm to hang around his neck. Then she either told us that it would make him sleep better or that we should remove it while he is sleeping to prevent him from strangling himself. Just to be sure I've attached it to his bed ;-)

Everywhere in the park Auro was attracting a lot (if not all) the attention of the Chinese. We literally couldn't go 2 paces without people stopping us and asking us all kinds of questions about Auro (of which we only understood two: boy or girl? how old?). He was kissed and photographed by so many people, you would think I was carrying Buddha himself! Even when he was asleep in his stroller, people flocked around him (silently) just to catch a glimpse of him sleeping!

One of the reasons why we made this trip was to find out how easy or difficult it would be to travel with Auro in China. I was especially worried about his sleeping during the night. We had asked for a room with two beds: one for us and one for Auro. We put him in the middle, tucked in the sheets as tight as we could and: he slept the whole night! So traveling in China with Auro turned out to be not too difficult. We will definitely be doing this more often!

Music box

Auro loves music. He especially likes the music from my jewelry box. Even when he is all upset and crying, he starts kicking his legs in excitement as soon as I start winding up the key on the bottom of the box. And when I open the box and put it next to him, he calms down magically.

La legacy of India

During the weekend it was very warm (over 20 degrees), so perfect weather to go out. Today we went to an Indian restaurant downtown. When I found 'la legacy of India' on the internet, we were so happy at the idea of eating curry that we decided to check it out right away. As the information on the internet had mentioned, it wasn't a very fancy place, but the food was goooood!! We ordered so much we couldn't even finish and we paid only 7 euros!
While we were eating curry and nan, Auro had a puree of apple, pear and cauliflower (homemade!) which he seemed to like very much. Today, by the way, was the first time he had solids for lunch. So far he only ate in the morning and in the evening. For some reason I was never able to make him eat more than 2 or 3 spoons at lunch time. Anyway, after his lunch, Auro fell happily asleep on my lap.

Face to face

Usually I cook almost every day, but last Friday we ran out of gas and I haven't been able to use the gas cooker in the kitchen since then. The gas here works with a rechargeable card that you have to insert in a machine in the kitchen. On Friday, Remo took that card to the university and with the help of someone in the office we charged our 'gas card'. However, when Remo tried to insert the card in the machine again, absolutely nothing happened! Today (yesterday was a holiday) the same person who charged the card for us, called the gas company to ask what we should do and they told us to change the batteries in the machine. So, we tried that, but... still nothing!!!

Anyway, because we can't cook, we have basically been eating bread three times per day. So to have a change, we went out for lunch today. We went to eat noodles in 'Face to Face', a restaurant close to the university.

Poverino!

Even though, and probably because, temperatures have gone up the last couple of days (today's maximum temperature is 20 degrees!!!), Auro caught a cold. It started Sunday morning with a light cough, but it got a bit worse towards the evening. During the night his own cough woke him up every hour or so. Needless to say that yesterday was not the best day. He hadn't slept much the previous night and therefore wasn't a very happy baby. He nursed every 2 hours and in between he cried because he was tired. Every time he managed to fall asleep however, his own coughing woke him up again.
Last night he slept fairly well and this morning he looked rather happy again! He still has a stuffy nose and a light cough, but luckily it is not preventing him from falling asleep. He is taking his morning nap now, so I'm being as quiet as I can. We don't want to wake him... he has a lot of catching up to do!!

Plant a tree

It seems that winter in Changchun is finally over: the last couple of days the maximum temperatures were around 15 degrees! So, yesterday and today, we left our caps and gloves at home and went for a long walk. And we were not the only ones! It seems the city is waking up from a long wintersleep: people have traded in their thick wintercoats for lighter and more colourful jackets (and you can actually see faces again!), street vendors are selling fresh fruit (instead of frozen pineapple) and construction workers have started drilling, hammering and doing other noisy things again (day and night!). Also, there are people planting new trees along the road everywhere. Today, when we were out for a walk, we saw 3 trucks loaded with trees entering the university campus. Soon Changchun will be green again!!

To 'celebrate' the coming of spring, we ended our stroll today in a coffeeshop nearby (actually the only coffeeshop in this neighbourhood as far as I know) and treated ourselves to a hot chocolate and some blueberry dessert. Auro, as usual, preferred milk :-)))